Monitors and Cats

L

loudnaybor

New member
How about covering them when they aren't in use ? You could put a box or a milk crate over them so the cats couldn't get at them.
I once had a problem with a cat getting up on a shelf that had breakable items on it.
At someone's suggestion, I put several mouse traps down, NO WAIT THERE'S MORE, under a couple of sheets of newspaper. When the cat jumped up there, the traps went off, without hurting the cat because they're UNDER the paper. Scared the hell out of the cat, but didn't hurt it. After a few times, you couldn't get the cat to go up there with raw fish.
 
There are two cats that live in the basement where I also have my studio, just one room about 25 ft by 10ft. I thought I read somewhere that for a monitor like the tannoy reveals, it isn't recommended that you place them against a wall. I don't know if this is recommended by the event 20/20 monitors or not, but I am thinking of purchasing either pair to use with an old 150 watt receiver that says it uses 4 - 16 ohms for each channel (probably 75 watts each speaker I would guess?)
The speakers that I have now are old stereo speakers, and they are sitting on shelves I made up against the wall so the cats can't touch them. I'm afraid that if I do get some good reference monitors that they will be used as a scratching post and not reference monitor by the cats, who don't really understand right from wrong.
Would it be OK to have them up against the wall and not placed on the desk away from the wall? I think Tannoy said it would give a muddy sound if against a wall. Any other tricks that cat owners have for those sensitive cones?
Thanks
Bobbo (newlywed with two cats)
 
1) Try putting that milk crate over the cats.

2) Get a big dog.

3) Declaw declaw declaw.

4) There's some sort of "cat repellent" spray stuff that I've seen before. Don't know how great it smells but it might be an option.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Thanks Loudnaybor and Slackmaster2K,
I think I will try covering them when I don't use them. I could even use cardboard boxes probably. I like the mouse trap idea too, but I'm afraid that I would actually get the trap instead of them. I would forget about them, wake up with some coffee, go downstairs, wonder to myself, gee whats this... snap!!!
I just had to edit this as I saw Slackmaster2K's post. I thought of Tattoo from that Fantasy Island show when I read "declaw, declaw!". Now I'm thinking of nasty things that could have happened to the little fella if he came across a cat.
I'm getting the tannoys, and now can put them in the right place. Thanks again for the idea. Any other ideas are sure welcomed. I like what I'm hearing, or seeing, so far.
bobbo

[This message has been edited by bobbo (edited 11-11-1999).]
 
The ultimate solution would be to suspend the speakers from the ceiling completely out of claws reach. I was scared bigtime when I first brought home my 20/20 monitors, so whenever I left the cordless meowlers alone, I'd disconnect the monitors and lay them face down on a clean surface. That got old pretty quickly, so now I just leave them where they are. No claw marks so far. But these cats have thrown my Advents off of their speaker stands! And they trashed a subwoofer box I had with a pair of 12" drivers by sitting on and crushing the cones. They must like the Events! Another furry endorsement for Event
Electronics.
 
Try a decoy scratching post - one that kitty really likes. It helps if, the first time the whiskers tries out the new post, you furrow your brows and look annoyed a bit - cats like that even more.
 
I am also thinking of putting pictures of mean looking dogs on those red tannoy monitors, which might scare the cats, and make them run away. Maybe they don't like the color red? (they actually will probably love it, they are strange critters)
 
Pet Organics makes an all natural citrus based spray that serves as an indoor cat repellant for furniture and such. It is available at PetsMart and other pet stores for about 8 or 9 dollars. Cats hate citrus odors ; )

Other repellants are out there, but they have harsh chemical smells and are sometimes dangerous until they dry.

The repellant, an ample supply of scratching toys, a couple of strategically placed scratching posts, and a Super Soaker water cannon for those small feline revolts should help keep your monitors out of danger.

Our two Bengal cats, Titania and Nineveh, respect the fact that they cannot scratch the speaker grill cloth on my Marshall JCM800 half-stack, but they do still enjoy it's tube warmth...and not from a tonal perspective : )

Best wishes to you and your "studio engineers"...

B.L. Zeebub
 
You can "scratch" the water cannon idea. I tried that, and it worked for a week or so. Then my cats started enjoying it, and would purposely scratch stuff just to get a soaking. When I was through they looked like they had just climbed out of the swimming pool. Plus, you don't want to hose down your monitors. The drapes and couch will dry...
 
Good point about not wanting to hose down the monitors...The citrus repellant is still worth a try though.

It works really well for one of our cats. She seems extra sensitive to the citrus smell, but the other one is hell on paws and we had to resort to a few squirts of the chemical based one (can't think of the name) behind the couch to get the point across.

We seem to have trouble with their genetic curiosity factor more than anything. I recieved my new Alesis QS7.1 a few weeks ago, and for the first few hours, I couldn't keep the cats off of it...Then as always, they quickly found more sporting amusement and let me take it for a spin.

Pets certainly are alot of work at times, and (like children) they are certainly not for everyone, but IMHO they are definately worth it.

Regards,

B.L. Zeebub
 
You think cats are bad at knocking stuff down, my wife's 8' boa constrictor can send anything crashing to the floor if it's between it and the wall. Those side muscles really flex! One day I hope to post a picture, hopefully I'll get a good one while it's still around (it's the oldest snake in the world, 31+ years, no shit!!).
 
That citrus spray reminded me of something. I knew someone who use to put orange peels all over the furniture to keep the cats off of it. It seemed to work.
 
That orange peel solution seems labor intensive, as old orange peels will start to grow mould colonies and then repel <you> from the furniture. :)

And Dragon: do you have that snake running around loose in your house? Well, running may not be the right term; how about slithering?
 
wow...this is all great advice.. i have a similar problem ... anyone know ho to keep my girlfriend from throwing my equipment at me when shes mad ? or even worse , trash my equipment out of a jealous rage ? i can only hear the " your stereo doodads mean more to you then i do " bit so many times ... well...shes right..but still , i can only stand so much... i think they make a girlfriend repellent , i cant think of the name off hand...oh yeah !! its called mace..ill give it a try and let you all know how it works out...

all in good , clean , non sexist , jovial sorta fun...

- eddie -
 
You're lucky it is a boa... I had a Burmese Python that got 4 years old and it was eating homeless people and tires and shite... Its head was as big as a football and I would stack all of my weights on its cage( 180 lbs or so...) and it would push the lid off with ease and try to eat my iguanas (which were 3 feet in length)... Eventually I turned it loose in Pensacola Christian Academy where I heard it lives in the basement and eats the occasional janitor...
These are just rumors mind you...

S8-N
 
Eddie, if it was another woman, I could just point you to http://www.polyamory.org and wish you luck, but if she's jealous of your recording equipment, I can only say...she's probably the wrong one! Try a 20-bit girlfriend, they have more, er, resolution.

S8-N: OK, my wife actually has three boas and we also have a kind of large iguana (we're thinking of giving up on the cage and just giving her a corner of the bedroom). My 5-year-old boy has 3 sharks and my 10-year-old has an electric knife fish and likes bats. Hmm...sounds like I'm the most normal one, doesn't it? But that's obviously not true at all! :)

BTW, my wife's not jealous of much, but the iguana starts acting up whenever my wife and I get cozy.
 
Eddie - tell your girlfriend she has to organize her approach a bit differently - tell her to get a salmon-colored teeshirt with a list of forum options printed down the front, and at the bottom have printed "contact us/visit our main site".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top